Sociobiology Misses the Mark: An Essay on Why Biology But Not Sociobiology is Very Relevant to Sociology WALTER R. GOVE This essay takes the position that sociologists need to pay more attention to biology, but that the biological perspective provided by sociobiology is not the perspective that is the most relevant. The reductionist nature of sociobiology is noted and the treatment by sociobiology of altruism, religion, homosexuality, the maximization of inclusive fit- ness, group versus individual inheritance, and the genetic inheritance process itself is critiqued. Soctobiology's strong emphasis on ultimate causation and the denigration of proximate causation is treated as particularly problematic. The paper ends with a plea that sociologists pay more attention to the research that shows the interactional effects of biological, psychological and social processes. The publication of the Edward O. Wilson (1975) book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, provided a catalyst for the development of a clearly articulated para- digm based on evolutionary theory that has attracted scholars from the social and biological sciences. This paradigm involves more than a modification of previous paradigms that have attempted to relate biological and social variables. Instead it calls for a paradigm shift which involves a reintrepretation of virtually all social science research and either denigrates or ignores virtually all sociological theo- ries. Some sociologists have embraced sociobiology as providing a new all-encom- passing paradigm that can be used to explain human behavior; a few see sociobiology as a bridge between the social and the biological sciences; and most have rejected sociobiology largely on metaphysical grounds. Most sociologists who are critical of sociobiology lack a clear understanding of what sociobiology is and how it relates to recent developments in biological theory and research. Lacking such an understanding, they do not have a framework that will allow them to correctly interpret the work of sociobiologists. The present essay attempts to Walter R. Gove is professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. Best known for his work on mental illness and on gender and marital roles, he also has published extensively in the area of family, crime, and aging. While an undergraduate student in the 1950s, he was trained in biology and has had a strong interest in biological issues since that time. Please address all correspondence to the Depart- ment of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235. 258 The American Sociologist/Fall 1987